When Gaffney moved to St. Petersburg over 30 years ago, she immediately jumped in to make an impact, primarily as a child advocate and a community change agent. Gaffney joined the board for The Children's Home, which provides intensive therapeutic and educational interventions for children who had been unsuccessful in foster home and adoptive placements due to emotional problems created by abuse and neglect. Through her work, she has positively impacted hundreds of children. In 2004, Gaffney founded Suncoast Voices for Children to provide for the unmet physical, psychological, educational and social needs of abused, abandoned and neglected children in Pasco and Pinellas counties. Since 2004, Gaffney has been able to raise over $4 million to fulfill the needs of at-risk youth, ultimately to help keep children out of foster care and support them if they already are.
The grant tonight will be used to accomplish each nonprofit's unique mission to serve underserved children in the Bay area. Suncoast will use the funding toward their child request program, which will identify needs of each child to help prevent them entering the foster care system. RCMA will use the funding for Wimauma Sports Pavilion, which is used for physical education classes during the day and extracurricular sports after school, impacting nearly 350 students. Lastly, Academy Prep will use the funding to support expenses covered by their Student Scholarship fund, which includes educational materials, enrichment activities and athletic supplies for courses, among other things.
Gaffney became the 476th Lightning Community Hero since Jeff and Penny Vinik introduced the Lightning Community Hero program in 2011-12 with a $10 million, five-season commitment to the Tampa Bay community. Through tonight's game, in total, the Lightning Foundation has granted $24.9 million to more than 600 unique nonprofits in the Greater Tampa Bay area. During the summer of 2021, the Viniks announced that the community hero program will give away another $10 million over the next five seasons.
